A code editor that allows me to hilghight selected snippets of code?

May 3, 2014 3:30 PM

I'm not talking about creating editable regions in a template. I want to select little details and highlight them so they're easy to find.
posted by markcmyers to Technology (7 answers total)

In notepad++ you can right click a region of selected text and select the 'style token' option which lets you highlight things one of six colors. I doubt it gets saved between sessions, though. I'm not a real coder, so maybe there are other more specific tools professional programmers use.
posted by Zalzidrax at 4:07 PM on May 3, 2014

Sublime Text does this by default. In fact you can edit all of them as well.
posted by bitdamaged at 4:44 PM on May 3, 2014 [7 favorites]

You could do this very easily in vim. Either using search highlighting for one-off uses, or modify the appropriate syntax file to treat the phrases you want in the way you want
posted by colin_l at 8:38 PM on May 3, 2014

Adding to bitdamaged response. The feature is often called multiple cursors, but the documentation calls it select all. It is the feature that made me switch to sublime text.
posted by phil at 9:37 PM on May 3, 2014

Response by poster: Sorry, my question wasn't clear. I'm not looking for a way to mark text so I can change it. I want to background-color certain areas of text so that when I save the file and then come back to it later, those areas will pop out visually. I'm talking about highlighting the way you highlight with a highlight marker in a paper document, so the text can be easily spotted. Zalzidrax addressed the question I'm asking. Unfortunately, as he surmised, the highlighting doesn't get saved between sessions.
posted by markcmyers at 6:10 AM on May 4, 2014

Best answer: Kate (and I assume kdevelop) have persistent bookmarks, which highlight a particular line in a color scheme of your choice.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 7:25 AM on May 4, 2014

Best answer: If you can edit syntax highlighting rules in your editor, you can probably designate a special commented-out symbol or word to start and stop a background color.
posted by michaelh at 7:55 AM on May 4, 2014